title: Transcription profiles of endothelial cells in the rat ductus arteriosus during a perinatal period.
abstract: Endothelial cells (ECs) lining the blood vessels serve a variety of functions and play a central role in the homeostasis of the circulatory system. Since the ductus arteriosus (DA) has different arterial characteristics from its connecting vessels, we hypothesized that ECs of the DA exhibited a unique gene profile involved in the regulation of DA-specific morphology and function. Using a fluorescence-activated cell sorter, we isolated ECs from pooled tissues from the DA or the descending aorta of Wistar rat fetuses at full-term of gestation (F group) or neonates 30 minutes after birth (N group). Using anti-CD31 and anti-CD45 antibodies as cell surface markers for ECs and hematopoietic derived cells, respectively, cDNAs from the CD31-positive and CD45-negative cells were hybridized to the Affymetrix GeneChip® Rat Gene 1.0 ST Array. Among 26,469 gene-level probe sets, 82 genes in the F group and 81 genes in the N group were expressed at higher levels in DA ECs than in aortic ECs (p<0.05, fold change>2.0). In addition to well-known endothelium-enriched genes such as Tgfb2 and Vegfa, novel DA endothelium-dominant genes including Slc38a1, Capn6, and Lrat were discovered. Enrichment analysis using GeneGo MetaCore software showed that DA endothelium-related biological processes were involved in morphogenesis and development. We identified many overlapping genes in each process including neural crest-related genes (Hoxa1, Hoxa4, and Hand2, etc) and the second heart field-related genes (Tbx1, Isl1, and Fgf10, etc). Moreover, we found that regulation of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, cell adhesion, and retinol metabolism are the active pathways involved in the network via potential interactions with many of the identified genes to form DA-specific endothelia. In conclusion, the present study uncovered several significant differences of the transcriptional profile between the DA and aortic ECs. Newly identified DA endothelium-dominant genes may play an important role in DA-specific functional and morphologic characteristics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Science and Medical Bioscience, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Norika Mengchia
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yokota
authors.forename: Shun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maekawa
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lü
authors.forename: Yun-Wen
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Inbun
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tei
authors.forename: Hideki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Taniguchi
authors.forename: Utako
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.forename: Susumu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Minamisawa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers; D004373:Ductus Arteriosus / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011247:Pregnancy; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers